[pct-l] minor aches and pains after six days; could I have ever been a through hiker?

[Scott Williams]

Hey David,

Congrats on finishing after all these years.   That's love and
perseverance!  I find that no matter where I start, the first week always
has some bloody discharge from my nose.  It's at its worst in the High
Sierra if I have no break in, and this year with the Rough Fire, it was
there the whole time I was up there.  The sheer exertion and heavy
breathing of backpacking is so different from breathing most of the time at
home that I think it aggravates the membranes.  Dry air at altitude makes
it worse than a hike on the coast in moist air and low altitude, but add
smoke to it and forget about it.  It's gonna be bad.  The solution for me
each year is to get into the second week when it lessens and finally goes
away.  I've never had it linger on any of my thru hikes.  The body adjusts
and toughens the inside of my nose.  By hiking 6 days per year, you're
always getting the hardest part.  The first week on trail is always the
hardest for me.  After that it gets easier and by the 3rd week you're just
living a different life.  Trail life.

And as for geezers on trail, it's the perfect adventure for us.  You can
start out slow and build into it.  I've met a number of 80 year old thru
hikers that simply blew me away!

Thanks for all the info.

Shroomer

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 6:06 PM, David Hough on pct-l <
pcnst2001 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> In 1976 I was planning/fantasizing about a northbound through hike in
> 1977.     I went to work to pay off
> my school debts instead, and missed my chance to join the class of 1977
> immortals.
>
> Since then, six days is about as long as I have attempted, while getting
> older and remaining employed full
> time, and each time I have been in such bad shape afterward that I
> wondered if I could have finished
>
> a through hike even in my salad days.
>
> I managed to find a combination of pills and procedures to avoid the
> digestive problems of my last long trips,
> but this time the worst after-effect is the pain in my fingers and hands
> and feet from cracked calluses
> and disgusting bloody news from my nose.     I don't dare take any aspirin
> for fear of encouraging the nose
> or even worse the hemorrhoids.       Yet people, even old people like me,
> do through hikes every year.
>
> So any suggestions about the nose problem?    The Rough Fire smoke
> probably didn't help, but the problem
> persisted after I was out of the smoke.
>
>
> For dry skin and calluses, there's lots of potions one can apply, and
> super glue for cracked callus
> emergencies, but in a dry dusty environment I hate to
> do anything which helps the dirt stick better to my skin and gear.   I
> need to do something though.
> My thumbs are so cracked that it's painful to type this.
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